Scandinavian Design Group

Abba Sill

Challenge

Abba is the absolute market leader brand in the herring category with a volume share of almost 60%. Sales is primarily concentrated to a few holidays; Easter, Midsummer and Christmas. Previous years had shown a decrease in sales, both for Abba and the entire category. A category that had become stagnated and price oriented with increased competition from private labels. So even if Abba was by far the largest brand in terms of sales the perception of the brand and its role in the category was challenged. The design was being perceived as generic and not being able to convey an added value. How could Abba reclaim their leading position, develop the category and increase sales?

Solution

We wanted to strengthen the Abba Herring range by emphasizing on its product offer and uniqueness, creating a strategy going from a distant producer of “products from the sea” to a brand with knowledge and high quality products from Bohuslän on the west coast of Sweden. In doing so we wanted to broaden the image of the Abba herring range by creating the concept Sillkultur (herring culture), communicating the bigger offer, added value and manifesting the market leader role.

The design we created captures the uniqueness of the brand and its origin as well as diversifies the different flavours in the range. By adding seals on the lids we not only differentiated the flavours from an above perspective, which is very common in-store, but also added the sense of enhanced quality. An important task was also to create a greater impact on the shelf by using the new Abba significant graphic element.

Result

Along with the strengthened Abba brand and offer we now also see a vitalized herring category. The concept and inspiration of Sillkultur manifests in an extensive product and concept innovation in terms of collaborations with famous chefs, customer interaction in flavour development and the annual edition of Årets Smak (the flavour of the year).